Famous Comic Books Timeline

Oct. 18, 1896: Richard Outcault’s "Yellow Kid," recognized as the first major modern comic-strip character, first appeared in the New York Journal. In late 1902, William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal released five 50¢ books with cardboard covers reprinting Sunday comic strips in full color, referring to them as "the best comic books that have ever been published."




1932: The Adventures of Dick Tracy, published by Whitman, was the first Big Little Book.



May 1934: Famous Funnies #1 (dated July) went on sale. Begun by Eastern Color salesman Max C. Gaines, it ran for 218 issues over the next 21 years, was the first monthly comic book, and sold for 10¢.



1935: New Fun was the first DC comic book.



March 1937: The first issue of DC’s Detective Comics was published. Though Batman didn’t make his debut in its pages until #27, this title is now the longest-running comic-book series in the world.



June 1938: Action #1 had this as its cover date; the issue featured the first appearance of Superman.



October-November 1939: This was the cover date for Marvel Comics #1, one of the comic-book issues bringing the highest prices as a collector’s item today. The company became known as Timely through most of the Golden Age — not adopting the "Marvel Comics" imprint until the 1960s.



May 8, 1940: Chicago Daily News Literary Editor Sterling North denounced comic books as "a poisonous mushroom growth of the last two years," adding that comics were "guilty of a cultural slaughter of the innocents."



1942: Stan Lee became editor at Timely, when Simon and Kirby left for DC.



Fall 1942: E.C. started — with Picture Stories from the Bible.



March 1948: In a Town Meeting of the Air radio broadcast, Saturday Review of Literature drama critic John Mason Brown described comic books as "the marijuana of the nursery; the bane of the bassinet; the horror of the house; the curse of the kids; and a threat to the future."



October 1954: The Comics Magazine Association of America started to censor comics before publication.



September-October 1956: Showcase with this cover date (issue #4) reintroduced The Flash, a DC super-hero from the ’40s. The issue marked the start of The Silver Age.



Spring 1961: The world of widespread comics fandom emerged with the (almost simultaneous) publication of two amateur magazines devoted to comics: Alter Ego and Comic Art.



Fall 1961: Fantastic Four #1 was published with a cover date of November; it was the start of the so-called "Marvel Age of Comics."



July 27, 1964: Fan Bernie Bubnis put together a Monday-afternoon event in New York City that is usually acknowledged as the first comics convention, and by 1966, there was a two-day July event that followed much of the same format as today’s comics conventions.



November 1967: Zap Comix #1 was printed, with a run of 5,000 for the 25¢, 24-page underground comic book.



November 1970: The first edition of what came to be known as The Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide was published; the print run was about 1,800, and a Mint copy of the eight-year-old Amazing Fantasy #15 was listed at $16, more than 100 times its original price of 12¢.



Spring 1971: High-school student Alan Light began publication of The Buyer’s Guide, a comics collectors’ publication which evolved into the weekly Comics Buyer’s Guide.



September 5, 1972: Comics & Comix was founded in Berkeley, Calif. Store spokespeople estimated later that there were fewer than 25 stores of the type in the country at the time. By 1978, the line had expanded to six locations.



1974: Jack Katz’s The First Kingdom began from Bud Plant: an independent, non-anthology, non-"underground" title.



1975: Phil Seuling began (non-returnable) direct distribution of Marvel and DC comics to comics specialty shops, later incorporating with partner Jonni Levas as Sea Gate Distributors, Inc.



December 1977: Cerebus by Dave Sim began with this date — a comic book that became so immensely popular that copies of the first issue were eventually forged. Sim’s initial print-run was 2,000; it grew to 10 times that within a decade.



March 1978: Fantasy Quarterly carried this date — and the first installment of Wendy and Richard Pini’s ElfQuest, one of the success stories in self-published comics.



September 30, 1978: Independent publisher Eclipse published Sabre #1, its first title.



November 1982: First published its first comic book: Warp #1, dated March 1983.



December 1, 1982: Krause Publications took over The Buyer’s Guide, which became Comics Buyer’s Guide and introduced a newspaper format. The comics publishing field had its own trade journal, one that served creators, publishers, distributors, shops, and collectors.



December 1982: The first issue of Camelot 3000 appeared. It was a 12-issue maxi-series, the first DC produced exclusively for the direct-sales market.



April 6, 1984: Peter A. Laird and Kevin B. Eastman placed an ad in CBG to sell 3,000 copies of their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1. The title’s success led to a black-and-white explosion of titles in the comics field.



Late 1986: New World bought Marvel.



February 1987: Four publishers cut off comics-shop distributor Glenwood, and that distributor ceased business by May.



April 1987: Tom DeFalco follows Jim Shooter as Marvel editor in chief.



1988: Andrews Group, Inc., bought Marvel for $82.5 million.



August 1988: Bud Plant sold his distribution company to national comics-shop distributor Diamond Comic Distribution, Inc.



1989: In Illinois v. Correa (familiarly known in the comics community as the "Friendly Frank’s case"), a comics shop manager was charged with a crime for having material for adults in his shop. Out of the case was born the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund to help fight legal problems for comics creators and retailers. Cases continue to this day.



July 1990: Spider-Man #1 by Todd McFarlane set what was the highest recorded paid circulation for a comic book to that point. The first printing had sales of 2,350,000. When all editions were added, the total paid circulation was approximately 2,650,000 copies.



Summer 1991: MacAndrews and Forbes sold 40% of Marvel to the public, raising $74 million for debt reduction and owner dividends.



June 1991: X-Force #1 by Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld beat the record set by Spider-Man #1. Thanks in part to a marketing gimmick in which collector’s cards were bagged with the issue, the paid circulation came to approximately 3,900,000.



July 1991: X-Men #1 by Chris Claremont, Jim Lee, and Scott Williams beat the paid circulation record set by X-Force #1. Marvel released the issue in five editions with variant covers. Estimated paid circulation was approximately 7,500,000.



February 1992: Several hot creators left top series at Marvel to form their own imprint, Image. Initially solicited and distributed by Malibu, the titles were eventually completely taken over by the creators.



July 4, 1992: Marvel announced it would acquire Fleer Corp. for $265 million.



Nov. 17, 1992: DC shipped between 2.5 million and 3 million copies of Superman #75, featuring the death of Superman. They vanished from stores, as the issue brought more new customers into comics stores than ever before. In Detroit alone, more than 175,000 copies sold in one day.



Mid-1993: The glut of new comic books caused by a speculator bubble hit more than 700 per month.



Dec. 28, 1994: Marvel bought Heroes World, the third-largest direct-market distributor.



March 3, 1995: Marvel announced that, beginning with July-shipping product, Heroes World would become the exclusive distributor of Marvel products, eventually leading to the dissolution of the International Association for Direct Distribution, Inc.



March 9, 1995: Marvel bought SkyBox for about $150 million.



April 30, 1995: DC announced its product would be distributed exclusively by Diamond Comic Distribution, Inc. On July 24, Image and Dark Horse announced they would be exclusive with Diamond. Many other companies followed suit, with ensuing jockeying for exclusivity between national distributors Diamond and Capital City Distribution, the second-largest national comics distributor, in the months that followed. Capital exclusives eventually included Kitchen Sink and TSR.



Sept. 22, 1995: Marvel and DC announced their entire universes would cross over for the first time in a joint publishing project.



Dec. 14, 1995: Marvel announced it had hired two Image founders to reshape The Avengers, Captain America, Fantastic Four, and Iron Man.



July 1996: Diamond bought Capital City, making Diamond the last remaining major distributor for comic books to direct-market comics shops.



September 1996: Rob Liefeld left the Image group.



October 1996: Superman married Lois Lane.



Dec. 27, 1996: Marvel filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.



June 2000: CrossGen began publication with its monthly Scion, Sigil, Meridian, and Mystic titles.



September 2000: Bill Jemas took over Marvel Comics operations, and Joe Quesada was hired as Editor in Chief.



October 2000: Marvel launched its "Ultimate" line with Ultimate Spider-Man



May 4, 2002: Free Comic Book Day marks the industry's first broad cooperative promotional venture